Plastique - A Smallville Recap

Smallville is one of those shows that I’ve watched from the beginning and will no doubt watch until the very end, even though there are episodes (and entire seasons) that are rather uneven. I love it, for better or for worse. Thursday night’s episode, “Plastique,” was one of those meh episodes. Seems to be back to the old “Freak of the Week” Smallville formula.

It starts out with Clark on his first day of work at The Daily Planet. Not much time passes when there’s an explosion outside…a bomb takes out a bus. He goes in to help, of course, and one of the people he saves is Tess, the chickie that replaced Lex Luthor.

Chloe also is on the explosion scene and finds this girl stumbling along after the wreckage. Her name is Bette and she turns out to be the one responsible for the explosion. She has meteor powers and can make things explode or catch on fire with her mind, typically whenever she gets upset.

Clark discovers that Tess - the woman he saved - is his new boss at The Planet. They talk and she is convinced that Clark is responsible for Lex’s disappearance, so she’s keeping an eye on Clark now.

Clark discovers it’s not a bomb that took out the bus, so he goes to find Bette, who he is convinced is somehow responsible. She is, of course, but he’s not sure how. Meanwhile Chloe has taken Bette under her wing, unbeknownst that she is a ticking time bomb.

Turns out that Bette is another LutherCorp test subject, who escaped from the Montana compound. Tess wants her back…we don’t know why.

Blah blah blah, Chloe confronts Bette on the secret prison in Montana, Bette decides Chloe has to die, Clark shows up at the perfect moment to save Chloe, and offers the perfect help to Bette, telling her she’s NOT a freak and that he knows what it’s like to live a secret life.

Tess goes to see Bette in jail and offers to take her back to Montana and introduce her to others like her. Bette thinks she’s going to be a hero; Tess is really interested in getting her own evil version of The Justice League together.

And that was pretty much it. Hopefully, things will pick up more in the coming weeks. I thought it was a pretty weak episode. I don’t know if it’s because Lex Luthor is gone from the show now, and there’s such a need to have someone for Clark to play against, to contrast against. I’m not sure yet if Tess is going to be that person.

But I’ll keep watching. And hoping.